FOREWORD BY MARTY GRODER
I had known peaceful, loving times. Peace, however, was episodic. My priorities were learning, productivity, winning when necessary, cooperating when possible. Eventually, I became relentlessly indomitable. I mounted the hierarchies of power. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons was building a research prison in Butner, N.C. I was made warden of the whole prison, charged with developing both the psychiatric program and the four research units.
I was thirty-two years old and, at that time, the youngest warden in the history of the Bureau of Prisons. I had the privilege of attending and participating in national wardens’ conferences with men who had twenty to forty years of experience in prison work. I had only four years; but during that time, along with Wardens Pickett and Fenton, I quelled four major riots, without any injuries, in the major U.S. maximum-security prison. The last riot in 1972 was designed to precipitate a series of riots nationwide; we stopped it cold. I also constructed some innovative and effective programs, including Asklepieion, which reduced recidivism among volunteers with eighteen months in the program from 40-60% to 13%. And these were the hardcore homicidal maniacs. I was on a roll.
Then fashions changed. That happens, even in prison work. In April, 1975, I was out on the street, unemployed. All the power that seven years of hard work had given me was gone. The thousands who either loved or hated me were destined to become indifferent. At age 35, I was to become an urban legend.
As was my way then, I got mad. I vowed to get even. If I could not rule in Powerland, I would rule in “Who the hell knows?” But somewhere I would rule. I began to explore that which I will now call Loveland. In 1983 I realized that I could not stay in my first marriage and be in Loveland. So I left. After seventeen years of hard searching and experimenting, and many failed relationships, I finally found myself living in Loveland fulltime. Paradoxically, ruling was not one of the choices. I had found the lovely, loving Leslie (whom I later married) to Sacagawea me the rest of the way to the Promised Land. (Sacagawea was the Native American princess who showed Lewis and Clark the way through her native land on their famous western expedition.) She was a native speaker of Love and its ways: talk, action, wisdom and boundaries. I had never harmed her with my barbarian ways. I learned the full meaning of living in Loveland. I learned to live at peace with her and myself. I learned that my Warriors (see Chapter Six) were neither needed nor helpful in our home. I had become a naturalized citizen of Loveland. I began to teach what I know. Thus, this book.
Now, gentlemen, does this mean I have wimped out? No. I can and do strategize and act aggressively when necessary. Just NEVER at home. I also do not look for challenging fights with Giants. Fights interfere with being at peace. (As a young man, my motto had been: Kill a Midget, Eat for a Day; Kill a Giant, Eat for a Week!)
Pat Webster came along after a five-year sabbatical, during which time she had sailed off into the sunset, temporarily leaving her professional life. Pat and I have known each other for many years. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the spiritual aspects of marriage and has had longstanding interest and skill in working with couples’ relationships, incorporating my research and teaching. She was willing to do the hard work of organizing and writing the material; and as an alpha female, she understood the content. We have worked well together. While we have been writing this book, we were delighted to note the publication of Kate Ludeman and Eddie Erlandson’s book, Alpha Male Syndrome, about alpha males in the business world. We were excited to identify our alpha types in that book. I am a Visionary and Pat is an Executor; those two alpha aspects have teamed up well. Enjoy the result.
So, if you have failed at love enough and are sick and tired of being sick and tired and you are a Total Fucking Asshole like me (translation: high- functioning, arrogant, grandiose, leadership-type male), this book is for you. By the way, if you are an alpha female, this book is also for you. This book will be your GPS in Loveland to help you “recalculate” and get back on course. Good luck in using it; I hope you are not already in an irretrievably bad neighborhood.
I also want to thank the usual suspects. Thanks to Pat, who has earned a black belt in dealing with me. Thanks to Leslie, whom I love and have not harmed and who has built a safe haven with me. Thanks to my friends, colleagues, and last clients who have read this work and given it their best shot and love. Thanks to all helpers along the way. Acknowledgments go also to the women whose hearts I broke, including my ex-wife and mother of our children.
